


No Going Home (with names like ours)

by Silvereye



Category: Guns of the Dawn - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Chocolate Box Treat, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Possibly the second darkest post-canon timeline?, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: "I will see if they have anyone resembling a doctor." Cristan leaves and Emily is alone in the cabin, staring at the opposite wall and wondering how it has come to this - escaping from Chalcaster in the middle of the night and getting shot in the process.A year after the war ends, Emily and Cristan escape Lascanne.
Relationships: Emily Marshwic/Cristan Northway
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	No Going Home (with names like ours)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



> Partypaprika - merry Chocolatemas! I hope you like it.
> 
> Title modified from "Ghost Towns" by Radical Face.
> 
> Some content notes at the end

By the time they reach the out-of-the way pier and the little smuggler ship Emily can hardly stand. Cristan's arm around her has gone from an alibi to assurance to necessity. Emily can tell he is ready to do something foolish. She hopes he won't. For one thing, she really cannot stop him while her arm is throbbing like this.

Infection was an ever-present threat in the swamps. It would be ironic to die of it almost a year after she left Levant. She laughs quietly and only realizes she has when Cristan's arm tightens around her.

This is not good.

Cristan gets them on the ship, with a few murmured words and going by the muffled clink, a lot of money. It takes most of Emily's concentration to refrain from falling over or looking so senseless that even smugglers would mind. She becomes properly aware of her surroundings only when she's sitting down on a narrow bunk in a cabin not much wider.

"We made it," she breathes. This is it, then, their escape from increasingly deadly Lascanne.

Cristan kneels in front of her. He tries to look unworried. "Hopefully. How are you?"

"I think it's infected," Emily says honestly. She gestures towards her left arm with her unwounded right hand. The bandage is completely hidden by shirt and jacket, but she is nonetheless acutely aware of it being there.

Cristan presses his lips together, closes his eyes, comes to a decision. "Please stay here," he says.

"Do you think I will be able go anywhere?" Emily says, attempting a smile.

"I would not put it past you, Emily," he says, his lips twitching. "I will see if they have anyone resembling a doctor." He leaves and Emily is alone in the cabin, staring at the opposite wall and wondering how it has come to this - escaping from Chalcaster in the middle of the night and getting shot in the process. Denlanders are painfully logical, driven by neither honour nor revenge, and so there must have been a point where she could have chosen differently to keep all of this from happening. She cannot reason her way to it, though.

Time slips. When she comes to, she's lying down on her right side on the bunk and Cristan is conversing with someone in low tones. So there was a doctor. He sounds terribly young. Younger than Cristan and possibly no older than herself.

"I cannot give a patient any laudanum when she's this weak," the doctor is saying. "It could suppress her breathing."

"You can hardly proceed without pain relief," Cristan answers. Emily hears the note of doubt in his voice, and underneath that, a lake of torment. What a choice to make.

"That depends on the precise condition of the wound."

"Gff," Emily says. She tries again. "Go ahead."

Cristan is instantly kneeling by her. "Emily?"

"Go ahead," she repeats. "Better that than infection."

A second of hesitation, then: "Do you want me to stay?"

Cristan is no stranger to blood. But not like this, not when it's the blood of someone he loves. "No. Help me with my shirt, though."

He does, then backs out of the room. Emily can hear the creak of floorboards with his every step. He does not go far.

The doctor is older than Emily originally thought. "This is not going to be very pleasant," he says. "Can you hold still?"

Emily nods and braces herself.

It is not pleasant at all. She's only half conscious by the time he finishes re-bandaging her arm. Her jaw aches from gritting her teeth. But the doctor murmurs "this should have done it" in his young man's voice and allows Cristan back in the room and Emily hopes for the best, because what else is there to do.

Cristan takes her hand in his. He cannot be comfortable on the floor. Emily tries to say so, but he answers with a cool hand on her brow and a firm suggestion to go to sleep and she really has no strength left to argue.

* * *

The ship is gently swaying when she wakes again. It is still dark outside. Emily feels exhausted and yet wide awake. Her arm is hurting, distantly, but it does not quite feel like the hot unsettling pain of the infection any more.

Cristan has fallen asleep in a truly convoluted position, with his head on the bunk and the rest of him on the floor. He has not let go of her hand.

It is strange to see him asleep. His face is blank, stripped of his habitual smile and any other trace of emotion. Emily still would not call it peaceful. She wonders if Cristan has ever been at peace.

"Wake up," she whispers. "You'll get the worst crick in your neck."

He does, going from sleep to wakefulness instantly. "I should survive."

There is exactly one bed. The arithmetic is not hard. "We should both fit in here," Emily says.

Cristan's eyes go wide. "Are you..." he starts.

"Certain? Yes." Emily smiles. "Neither of us is up for much impropriety, I think, and there is no other bed. And you really will not impress smugglers tomorrow walking around with your head craned to one side."

"There will hardly be walking around before we disembark, I think. They took our money, but will not like us getting in the way."

"Even so."

Cristan hesitates, then nods. The bunk only fits them if they both lie on their sides and she can only lie on one of them, so he ends up wedged between her and the wall, pressed to the latter as if afraid to touch her.

"I am sorry," he eventually says. "This really was not supposed to go like this."

"You cannot take responsibility for Denlanders shooting at me, can you?"

"I suppose I can. There must have been something they would have wanted more than the hero of Levant."

It's terribly like Cristan. There always must be a deal to make. But it really might be true in this world they now live in. "Something you would have been willing to give?"

"In all probability. There is not much I would not relinquish if it meant your safety."

"What about your own?"

"It has been negotiable for decades." He sighs. Emily feels his breath tickling her neck. "Your opinion of me and anything necessary to stanchion it might be the only things I could not trade. And no, I would not risk any convenient omissions. Not any more."

It's hard to say anything when he's this particular shade of honest: not merely candid but unflinchingly vulnerable. Emily shuffles a little bit closer and wonders at the scant inches of the hard bunk feeling like a clearing back in the forest: something momentous to cross. It's not quite like a clearing, of course. For one thing, she does not cross it entirely. That would feel too much like cornering him.

Cristan exhales and shifts. Emily feels his cool fingers bushing through her hair. "May I?" he asks.

"Yes," Emily says and lifts her head a little, to allow Cristan to slide his arm under her neck. He slots himself into place with utter precion, his chest to her back, his knees to the backs of hers, gentle enough to not jolt her in the slightest. He rests the tips of his fingers on her ribs, light like butterflies, as if unsure how much he is allowed. As if he does not yet know that the answer would be: all of it, to receive and to yield.

"What happens when we reach the port?" Emily asks, because if she does not talk she will very much be tempted to impropriety, all reasons to the contrary be damned.

"I will rent us a room," Cristan says. "After that... anything you want, with some delay. Denland will have tried to confiscate my funds by now, but they are not as proficient in creative accounting as I am. I will get most of it back, even if it will take months. It is enough to support us for the rest of our days. However you would like to spend them."

"You have no ideas of your own?" she says and smiles.

He kisses the nape of her neck gently. "Plenty. But I am a flexible man. I am used to being a villain and yet you almost made me an honest man. I will go where you lead."

Emily shivers. "I _would_ make you an honest man. There must be at least one priest in the Archipelago."

Cristan goes very still as if he has just stopped breathing. "Truly?"

"Of course," Emily says.

"I would very much like that," Cristan says, quiet enough to be audible for her only.

Emily turns her head and kisses his elbow where it lies under her neck. She would have preferred his wrist, but his elbow is what she can reach. "So we will. Good night, Cristan."

**Author's Note:**

> The fic features a wound that is starting to get infected. The descriptions are not graphic enough to warrant a specific tag, I think, but it is a prominent enough plot point that I'd feel remiss if I did not warn for it. The wounded character does get better.


End file.
